26 Christmas Trees
by Urchin of the Riding Stars
Summary: Song fic to 'Mad World.' America wonders and wanders, but doesn't get many answers. In loving memory of the Connecticut school shooting victims.


**Life's been complicated lately, folks...finished my finals, went back home to Illinois. Sorry I haven't updated for awhile loves, and I intended to publish this Friday night_, _but some things happened, lost a lot of my Fanfiction WIP...am okay, just stirred up...and very sad. **

**In loving memory of the Connecticut Shooting victims.**

* * *

_My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -_  
_In Corners - till a Day_  
_The Owner passed - identified -_  
_And carried Me away-_

_~Emily Dickinson_

* * *

~o*oOo*o~

_All around me are familiar faces  
Worn out places, worn out faces_

The yellow ticket tape bobs slightly in the breeze, his boots scraping the sidewalk. Reporters are snapping pictures, throwing questions at S.W.A.T members who patrol the area, remaining mutinous. People have already begun to litter the area with bouquets, and candles are glowing next to portraits of grinning, gap-toothed children. America looks at them, looks again at the school. Says nothing.

It's December, and yet there's still no snow. He wonders what the kids at this place thought about that, though he has a vague idea after glancing at the many paper snowflakes carpeting the classroom windows. One of the windows has been shattered by a bullet, and a stray snowflake is waving slightly in the brisk evening air. Waving at him. His stomach turns.

The warm roughness of a gloved hand clamps over his shoulder, and he turns. A young man is staring at him, expression impossible to tell underneath his helmet and glass visor. America glances at him, and vaguely the two have a silent conversation before the man wanders off, trudging back to rejoin his squad. He feels guilty; it probably would have been better manners to try and comfort the soldier. Say something encouraging. Say something that would make the young man not stare at his ceiling later in the dead of night, unable to sleep, trying to run an eraser over the images now carved into his eyes.

They'd told the children to keep their eyes closed as they hastened them out of the building to the fire department. A better strategy would have been to tell them to look-when his colonizer sharply ordered him once to not look upon the corpse of a hanged man, his immediate response had been to look up at what looked like a lifeless puppet swaying sadly in the breeze. It had been December then too.

_Bright and early for their daily races  
Going nowhere, going nowhere_

Just hours ago, he'd been dressed up as a Santa, gaily ringing a bell for the Salvation Army. He and Tony were going shopping later that afternoon, which would constitute stuffing all the toys from the shelves he could into baskets for his holiday charity work. Then, baking, party planning and mindless video game violence. _Assassin's Creed._

A collection of forgotten seedlings in paper cups catches his attention. They are sitting by a window, neglected. Most of them have withered away from want of water.

And now everything is hell. Everything is always hell, but that's beside the point. He knows he has to go now, else he won't go at all. And the school will rebuild. Eventually, though parents will be frightened as all hell to let their kids come back here. There'll be a memorial plaque and service, a drive for funds. Lowered American flags. Black ribbons and teddy bears, teddy bears littering the school lawns as far as the eye can see.

Alfred's eyes narrow as he opens the door and heads inside. Considers ripping the door off its hinges and smashing it, splintering it to pieces. But that will do nothing. The end result is the same, minus one tiny, microscopic variable.

He passes rows of paper reindeer with plastic googly eyes clumsily glued on and big red puffball noses hanging up outside a classroom, accompanied with paper dreidels and golden stars. He passes blood spattered on the wall, and for a moment he is drifting on the balls of his feet, just blankly There and Not There.

It's hard to say which urge triumphs over the other: the craving to turn tail and flee, or the urge to simply lie down in the place that had become tomb for over eighteen people and sleep. He turns away from the blood, trudges down the hall.

Not old news. He's seen people die before, heard of babies being shot at before being tossed into mass, unmarked graves. All things considered, this isn't nearly the height of death he's seen; he's watched his comrades writhe in ditches, held so many dying men in his arms as cannons boomed and blood made the earth blush red. 911. Hell, he even marched side-by-side with Russia's forces straight into the jaws of hell: Auschwitz Birkenau.

This is nothing. People will remember this as the third worst school shooting in the history of the United States, unless-_how his lungs are constricting, folding inside, doesn't want to breathe can't can't no point no room_-more follow.

But yet it's everything, because they in all likelihood will, despite people's arguing and debate on gun law. And in the meantime, people would be inspired. Would make attempts of their own. Some would get caught. Some wouldn't.

It's an autoimmune disease; his body is attacking itself. A theater, a school-when will there again be a safe place? Maybe the idea itself is a delusion, because mostly everywhere is safe, he thinks. Its the people in them who aren't.

He can reason this all he likes, but it doesn't particularly make him feel any better.

America's walking; he doesn't remember when he started walking again. Twenty children. Twenty little children. Children who were due to get out of school for the holidays soon. Children with parents who expected them to come home. And never would.

America walks by the cafeteria, and his stomach twists when he sees tape outlines on the ground, surrounded by murky splashes on the tiled floor. He stares at the daily bulletins and lunch menu. Both have been riddled with bullet holes.

His phone is ringing; a quick glance at the screen tells him that it's England trying to reach him. Without hesitation, he cancels the call with a swift push of the button.

He feels heavy. Tired, though the energy inside of him is raging and gnawing at him, telling him to _fix it, fix it, fix it, staunch the wound and prevent the infection simmering beneath the skin_. But a simple law change won't change anything.

America's ashamed and full of hate and pain. And grief, though England would have called that love.

_Their tears are filling up their glasses  
No expression, no expression_

_If the school had proper security, if anyone had _any_ idea..._

But the thoughts are stupid, reiterated by a thousand people on their stupid social networking sites. People cried, people held candles. People went to bed feeling solemn and sad. But few people, outside those who truly loved the victims, went to bed with the feeling that they'd never sleep again. Ever.

America lets out a noise; it might be a laugh. A death rattle maybe.

These were his kids too. And he couldn't even properly grieve for them. Every day, every hour, something small that feels so vital nonetheless is dying, only to replaced. Like the production of skin cells, only this was deeper than flesh.

These are people. His people. Him.

He passes trophies and plaques, pictures of aspiring young athletes smiling broadly, eyes narrowed at the ends and twinkling. It keeps happening. Reoccurring. The man was in hell and America is in hell, though his hell is offered antihistamine consisting of fast food and fleece blankets and hours of crying alone, not alone. The killer took everyone else into his own personal hell, gunned them down.

And people would wonder if the man thought he were performing some kind of mercy killing, if he were mentally ill. There would be more articles to come, many filled with how communities were 'congregating together' and all the cuddly shit to give people the impression the world wasn't rotting.

_You were one of mine. You were a part of me._

Alfred wearily drags a hand through blond spikes, wondering how bad a hangover he's going to have come tomorrow night.

_And that inch of me wanted to hurt the entire body. _

_Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow  
No tomorrow, no tomorrow_

_Selfishness at its fullest. _Nauseating cruelty. It wouldn't be so bad if he weren't so helpless.

_And I find it kinda funny_  
_I find it kinda sad_

'Santa' might have already bought Christmas gifts, kept them stowed underneath the stairs. Might have imagined the anticipated look on their child's face as they tore through wrapping paper, curiosity steadily rushing into joy with all the force of a speeding train as they saw the had-to-have-it toy in their hands.

_The dreams in which I'm dying  
Are the best I've ever had_

If he goes to pieces about everything, there won't be anything left to go on. And he has to, just like every single country has to, regardless of what limbs might be taken away or what new scars might appear on their bodies.

Even if a never-ending, noxious and vicious circle appears, until they crumple into dust or collapse into the waiting arms of the sea, there's nothing else to be done.

_I find it hard to tell you  
I find it hard to take_

The place, which smells of cleanser and chalk dust and sneakers has a strange feeling of holiness to it. Inhale, exhale. Nothingness.

_When people run in circles  
It's a very, very mad world _

_Mad world_

Passes by a juvenile poster bought at the teacher's store, marked with the classroom's birthdays. James is seven years old today.

_Children waiting for the day they feel good_  
_Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday_

_And I feel the way that every child should  
Sit and listen, sit and listen_

_Went to school and I was very nervous  
No one knew me, no one knew me_

He'd never been to school himself; not with any other pupils, at least. He remembers feeling a faint sense of loss when he was grown up, so large so quickly. So very human that it disgusted him just a little. He'd spent years, thousands and thousands of years as a child, only to lose that innocence so quickly.

America wonders if he were ever innocent. He supposes he must have been, to hurt quite so badly as this.

_Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson  
Look right through me, look right through me_

_And I find it kinda funny_  
_I find it kinda sad_

It's cold in here. America presses his face against a window, screws it up and cradles the emptiness inside of him, willing it to stir the desire to leave. To do. Doing is good, even if he can't DO anything.

Can he? He can certainly do a lot of things, certainly HAS to do a lot of things, but to what end? He's not quite certain anymore. This amount of death is puny, miniscule to the hurts he's received before, but it seeps in nonetheless, makes the old-almost-not-really-ignored scars of him ache.

_The dreams in which I'm dying  
Are the best I've ever had_

He hears a set of footsteps echo from behind him and America freezes, hand instinctively wandering towards his pocket revolver. But after an awkward, gruff clearing of the throat, it becomes apparent who it is and he slowly turns around, not certain whether he's annoyed or relieved or both.

It's England slowly heading towards him, a lumpy, cloth-covered parcel in his arms. America still doesn't say anything, doesn't acknowledge that he wasn't even aware his former colonizer was in the country.

"Hullo, boy," the Brit says dryly, limping towards him, looking up and then away. There's a curious, albeit familiar scent coming off him in waves, and it makes America wrinkle his nose. "I've...well...yes. Um. Well, then. Are you all right?"

Stupid question. The corner of his mouth twitches upward with the gentle stupidity of it all, and perhaps Britain gets it because he coughs and shuffles his feet, looking ruffled. Obviously he doesn't like being in this position. "I thought I'd drop in to see how you were doing, is all. It's not that..." Like a grudgeon bulldog, he shakes his head. "I just...well, you weren't answering and I thought maybe...just...I dunno." He lets out a disgusted sort of noise and turns to look at a Christmas pageant flier posted on the walls, expression inscrutable. "I'm glad to see you. You look well, considering."

America's eyes narrow, and he abruptly gives England the finger before striding down the hall. England makes a noise like an angry cat. "Oh, for God's sake, America, I swear, every _blasted_ thing I say you construe into something awful-"

"No need to fix what's not broken," America snarls. "If you're here to fucking laugh at me you can go ahead and—"

"Alfred," England calls out desperately. "Do you really think that I hate your children that much? That I hate _you_ that much?"

His voice breaks off, and with it, some of America's composure. For a moment again there's stillness, and England keeps his distance from the mutinous country breathing for air and not finding any. At last, with a shuddering sigh, he steps forward and presses something into America's hand. Automatically, Alfred looks down.

"This is..."

_I find it hard to tell you  
_

"I, ah, just thought I'd come to pay my respects," England murmurs, his ears going red. "There are...twenty-six of them waiting outside. T-trees, I mean. I thought...perhaps it might be nice for the Newtown residents to have something to decorate. They were stringing popcorn when I came inside."

America just traces a finger over the red and blue tree-topper, feeling sick to his stomach. England must see it, because for a moment he sidesteps his usual aloofness and cups the taller man's cheek, making him look at him.

"They had faith that the heroes would come, Alfred. And they did. So many more could have died."

_But no one should have died in the first place_.

"We go through these ceremonies...and there's a great deal of talk..." England murmurs, and perhaps he senses the searing little ball that's keeps expanding in Alfred's throat, because his grip tightens. "But I shudder trying to imagine...what_ pain_ they must be in. What you must be feeling."

Shame makes Alfred's face burn red. Here he is, being soothed and petted over by a centuries-scarred empire. But now the tears are falling thick and fast again and he claps a hand over England's warm one and just looks. England's tired face contorts with sadness.

"Good God Alfred, if it'd been _you_, I just...I could _never_...never mind. C-come now, dear boy, stiff upper lip. You're going to come out stronger because of this. Christ, don't give me that look, it was the same story that awful day eleven years ago."

But that wasn't his own body hurting itself. It was an entirely different hell.

_When people run in circles_

_It's a very, very _

He isn't sure what makes him start laughing. Maybe it's the painful sweetness of the gesture, maybe it's the idiocy of the entire situation that makes him want to break the ornaments, break the school building, break everything until this rawness has been torn open and he can bleed out in peace. Maybe it's the fact that regardless of the rage or pain, he'll have to stand, have to smile again.

Because he's fucking America, and he wants more than ever to up the ante to be the best hero that ever was, until there's nothing his shield won't cover.

Or perhaps it's the comfort he doesn't want, doesn't deserve but so desperately craves as he sinks to the floor again and England wraps him up in an embrace, murmuring words he can't quite catch.

"Someday soon I'll see that smile again, America," England murmurs softly, stroking his hair. "The only thing we have to branch on is that most people are good at heart. It's just the world that's mad."_  
_

_Mad world ... mad world._

_Enlarging your world  
_

_Mad world _


End file.
